RE: [Announce] New cryptoapi RPM packages for Mandrake 8.1

["IT3 Stuart B. Tener, USNR-R" <stuart@bh90210.net>]

Mr. Bouissou:

	I understood all of what you said (prior to your saying it actually), I was
just proposing that as a convenience to people installing it, that the RPM
backup the binary file for the user as a precaution against the user
forgetting to or improperly doing so.


Very Respectfully,

Stuart Blake Tener, IT3, USNR-R, N3GWG
Beverly Hills, California
VTU 1904G (Volunteer Training Unit)
stuart@bh90210.net
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Wednesday, September 26, 2001 1:58 PM

-----Original Message-----
From: Michel Bouissou [mailto:michel@bouissou.net]
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 12:57 PM
To: stuart@bh90210.net; linux-crypto@nl.linux.org
Subject: Re: [Announce] New cryptoapi RPM packages for Mandrake 8.1

Le Mercredi 26 Septembre 2001 18:59, vous avez écrit :
> Mr. Bouissou:
>
>             Never mind! Boy did I make a mistake. I realized your
directory
> structure, and have also found the README. Now I am clear on it, and have
> downloaded it all.

Yes, I hope the README answered the questions you asked in your 2 previous
messages.

>             - Make a backup copy of the following files, in case you would
> need them back:
>             - /sbin/losetup
>             - /bin/mount
>             - /bin/umount
>
>         Correct me if I am wrong, but I think if an RPM is built with that
> in mind, the RPM can actually make the backups for you in a more automated
> manner, no? This way the RPM installation would create the backups leaving
> less room for mistakes on installation.

RPMs usually makes backups only for configuration files, which may be
user-modified, but not for binary files, which aren't supposed to change.

Should you have a problem with a non-working binary when you install a RPM,
you would only need to "downgrade" to the RPM from your original distro to
solve the problem.

But, Oooops! What about mount ?

mount is absolutely necessary to be able to mount your filesystems, and, if
you have a problem with your "current" mount, you might be unable to mount
the filesystem (possibly CD-Rom) on which resides the RPM you'd need to
downgrade...

So, the choice of manually copying your "original" mount in the same
directory, to another name (i.e. mount-original) protects you, because if
ever your new "mount" fails, you still can directly use "mount-original"
instead...

It's quite improbable that you might encounter a problem with this patched
mount version anyway, but I found it preferable to be careful with this.

Hope this helps.

Best regards.

--
michel@bouissou.net
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